2512272 - Frequently Asked Questions in Time Administration

This Knowledge Base Article has some frequently asked queries from customers in Time Administration:

SAP Business ByDesign.

Troubleshooting Tips: Check any backdated changes done in Time Accounts, Time Types etc in Business Configuration -> Configuration Change History Reports. If system is not updating the changes in UI, perform Day Closure Run for specific employees from the date of this change.

Please find steps below:

1. Go to the Time Administration work center.
2. Open the Regular Tasks view.
3. Click on the Run Day Closure for One Employee option.
4. Select the employee in the value help.
5. Choose the action "Start Time Valuation".
6. Click on the Run button.
7. Provide the Date as Date of configuration change and select the Ok button.

1. Why is the user not able to access Time File of an employee under Time Administration.

User does not have access rights of Time Administration work center.

 

2. Is it mandatory to add Time Account Rule while assigning Ad-hoc Time Account for an employee?

Yes, it is mandatory to add Time Account Rule while assigning Ad-hoc Time Account in Time File of an employee.
There is an error message received if you have not added the Time Account Rule. Error Message: No time account rule is maintained for this time account.
Now you can proceed to add the Time Account in Time Account Balance of the employee successfully.

 

3. Why are you not able to see the deduction of leaves under newly changed Time Account from Temporary to Permanent?

You are not able to see the deduction of leaves under newly changed Time Account from Temporary to Permanent because Time Type is not linked to the Time Account during the given period:

1. Go to Time Types Activity in Business Configurations.
2. Select Maintain Employee Time Types.
3. Select required Time Type and add a row in Time Account Posting with corresponding validity. Perform Day Closure Run for this employee from the Time Profile Start Date.

 

4. Why is the Administrator able to record time for an employee under Time Type not assigned to him/her?

The Time Type shall be activated in Time Administration workcenter. The Administrator can use the Time Type assigned to the Country of this Employee.

 

5. You cannot find the leaves deducted for employee under Time Account Balance tab.

Employee will be able to record the Employee Times, even if there is no Time Account assigned. But you will not be able to see the balances because the Time Account is not assigned to the Employee. You have to assign the Time Account to the Time Profile of the employee.

 

6. You cannot see  assigned Holiday Calendar under Employee Timesheet.

You have not assigned a Work Schedule and Time Model to this employee under Time Profile tab in Time File.

 

7. Is it possible to hide the Country name while creating the new Time Model from the Time Model wizard?

No, it is not possible to hide the Country name while creating the new Time Model from the Time Model wizard. The availability of the Countries in the drop-down is based on the Countries that are scoped in Project in Business Configuration.

 

8. Is it possible to restrict Time Recording for same Time Frame via different channels?

No, it is not possible to configure any restrictions for a user to enter his/her Time Recording for same time frame via different channels e.g., Employee Time Recording, Time Punches. This is due to the fact that a user can perform different tasks at the same time for which he can enter his Time Recording for the same time frame.

 

9. Why is Planned Working Time not calculating for an employee?

The Time model for the selected duration is not added in Work Schedule under Time Profile for the employee.

 

10. After successfully replicating the delta changes for an Employee with respect to organizational data and the manager alignment, the changes have not reflected in the Time Profile for that Employee.

The time file will not reflect every organizational change for an Employee in the Employee Data work center. The time file only reflects time periods when time data has been changed. The current effective Reporting Line Unit manager will show for the current period however, it will not show the individual changes to the Org Unit unless a time data change was made.

 

11. You have hired a new employee, but when you try to assign a Time Model for it, no Time Models are displayed.

This employee was hired for a Country which does not have a Time Model created. Create a new Time Model and you will be able to assign it to the employee.

 

12. Your requirement is to maintain the Temporary Change of Work Schedule for multiple Employees or all the Employees in the system.

Temporary Change of Work Schedules can only be maintained on an individual basis and not for multiple Employees.

 

13. Is it possible to assign Deviating Holiday Calendar to multiple Employees at a time?

Assignment of Deviating Holiday Calendar is not a mass activity and hence we cannot assign the Deviating Holiday Calendar to multiple employees at a time. It can be assigned individually to employee via Maintain Deviating Holiday Calendar option in the Regular Tasks view in Time Administration workcenter.

If you require changes you can post it in our Influence Portal we shall consider it for further releases.

 14. Is it possible to write the timesheet every 15 minutes instead of 30 minutes?

The system is designed in such a way that half an hour slots are available to enter timesheet ex:6:00, 6:30 to avoid multiple options of drop down. You may use the standard options and manually update the time ex: 6:00 to 6:15. You can directly enter hours, ex: 2:15 hours and select interval 4:00 to 6:00 and manually change 6:00 to 6:15, it is possible in the system.  (i.e Here format-> hh:mm is Time )

15. Why new Leave Request does not Deduct the Quota of Time Account for an employee?

You have not maintained the Work Schedule / Time Model in the Time File of the Employee for the leaves to get deducted correctly and for the quantity to be evaluated.

For details refer KBA: 2286499 - New Leave Request does not Deduct the Quota of Time Account

16. How to link a Time Type with a Time Account?

When time is recorded against a time type, the time is typically tracked in one or more time accounts to accurately record cumulative balances. On the Time Account Posting tab, review the existing settings or define new posting details for selected time types:

The Time Account Type field displays the time account type to which the selected time type can post.

1. Go to Business Configuration workcenter.
2. Select Implementation Project view.
3. Select Open Activity List.
4. Search Time Types.
5. Click Add Row to specify an additional time account type.

For example, paid time off should be checked against and deducted from a leave entitlement time account type and should be counted by various statistical time accounts such as Absence (paid), Absence (allover) and Actual Hours.

17. What is Time Statement?

In the Employee Self-Services Overview of the Home work center, employees can display, review, and print a time statement containing details of their recorded times for a selected month, the balances of certain time accounts, and where relevant, daily postings to their working time accounts.

Time Administrators can also view the Time Statement of employees:

1. Go to Time Administration workcenter.
2. Select Employee View.
3. Search required employee.
4. Select employee and choose Time Statement option.

18. Where can you configure Premium-Pay?

Follow below steps to configure Premium-pay:

1. In the Business Configuration work center
2. Choose the Implementation Projects view.
3. Select your implementation project and click Open Activity List.
4. Select the Fine Tune phase
5. Select the Premium Pay — <Country> activity from the activity list.

• To review the predelivered premium pay types or create new premium pay types, click Maintain Premium Pay Type.

• If you require a new premium pay type, click Add Row and under Code enter a code for the new premium pay that begins with Z.

• Enter a descriptive name for the premium pay, indicating a special working situation that is compensated either at payment rates that deviate from employee’s standard pay or payment that is additional to this.

 19. How to assign Overtime to the employee:

You can follow the steps below:

1. Go to Time Administration workcenter
2. Select Employees view
3. Search required Employee
4. Select Edit and open Time Profile tab. Assign Time Recording Profile to the employee

5. Now enter Employee Times with Premium Pay:
Select Overtime Time Type and required Premium Pay which will then be allocated to the employee.

Overtime Time Type can be taken from the Standard Time Types available in the system. This is to indicate, these are extra working hours of the employee.

20. How to perform day Closure Run?

You can follow the steps below:

1. Go to the Time Administration work center.
2. Open the Regular Tasks view.
3. Click on the Run Day Closure for One Employee option.
4. Select the employee in the value help.
5. Choose the action "Start Time Valuation".
6. Click on the Run button.
7. Provide the Time Profile Start date of the employee selected and click on the Ok button.
8. For mass employee updates, you can use : Administer Day Closure Runs

 21. What is the Reports view introduced in Payroll Processing?

In the Payroll Processing Work Center, a new Reports work center view has been introduced – in future, this view would contain all the reports that would be relevant for an administrator to consolidate from a payroll perspective, and send to the payroll provider system. it is a a simpler and standard way for administrators to review and transfer data to their payroll provider systems.
You can check below blog for detailed information:
https://blogs.sap.com/2018/10/23/sap-business-bydesign-and-payroll/

21. What is the function of Regular flag in Premium Pay rule?

Premium pay marked as ‘Regular’ should be intended only for the purpose of Manual assignment of Premium Pay while recording times.
This indicator should not be selected, if Premium Pay is being configured for Automatic Premium Pay Generation.

22. Is it possible to replicate Time Models through Integration?

No. In Business ByDesign,We can replicate only Employees. Time Models needs to be created through Time Administration work center.

23. How to release times of an employee?

1. Go to the Time Administration work center.
2. Open the Employee view.
3. Find the employee and click Edit.
4. Go to the Employee Times tab page.
5. Find and select the time of the request.
6. Click Actions and select Activate.

24. Why does a time account overview show the time account only for the current year, when launched from the new leave request screen?

This works as designed and it shows the time account valid today and is not influenced by the date period for which the leave is recorded.

25. Why does the Project Time uploaded via the Excel, appears locked to the processor? You are unable to edit the row of time.

The time recording is not editable because the Time Type is deactivated for use within Time Administration and Employee Self Service time sheet views via Business configuration for time types.

An option to remove the time, if the project is not completed, is to reactivate the Time Type for Time Administration via Business Configuration, remove the times and then deactivates again.

 

26. Why is Time Type code missing while creating a New Time Model for any country?

Time Type code mapping is missing from Business Configuration settings.

You can follow the steps below:

1. Go to Business Configuration workcentre
2. Select Overview
3. Search for Time Types
4. Select Time Types - Specific Country
5. Select Maintain Employee Types
6. Select the Code you want to see in Time Model
7. Add value in field Relevance for Work Schedule as Productive 

This Time Type will then show up in the Time Model.

 27. Why does the new Time Profile has a different Work Schedule than the copied Time Profile?

If an Employee has Individual Work Schedule, and you have copied this Time Profile and created a new one. Instead of copying the exact Work Schedule from the previous Time Profile, it creates a new Work Schedule with different starting Weekday..

The is standard system behavior. To change the copied Work Schedule information, you can add the Time Model to the required Working Day that is missing and remove the Time Model from the ones that are days off and save your changes.

 28. An employee has applied leave in Vacation Time Type. Why Leave Available (as of today) showing as 0 days?

The Bookable Period of the previous year Quota Time Account Vacation-YYYY1 is set to "Start of the year To Unlimited" and hence  leaves of present years are acceptable in previous year's Time Account instance and if there is balance left in this Time Account Vacation-YYYY1.

Quota Time Account Vacation-YYYY2 will not be in use until balance in Time Account Vacation-YYYY1 is exhausted.

29. Why the Time Model view is missing in Time Administration work center?

In the project scope in Business Configuration, you have not scoped the questions relevant to the Work Schedules under the scoping element Time and Labor Management. Once you scope the relevant questions for the Work Schedules in Business Configuration, the Time Model view will be available in the system. The access rights of this view has to be assigned to the respective Business User in the Application and User management work center.

30. Is there a Web Service to work with Leave Requests?

Yes. In order to create leave requests, you can use the web service named as ManageEmployeeTimeIn, it can be used for Time recording and Leave Request.

31. Is it possible to add Time Accounts Quarterly in Business Configuration?

No it is not possible to maintain Time Accounts Quarterly in Business Configuration, this is an enhancement request.

32. Employee is missing from timesheet view under Time Administration workcenter.

Use Advanced filter to select Country of the Employee and then search to find the Active Employee under Timesheet view.

33. You have Planned Work hours for a Team member in a Project Task but when checking the Availability in Resource Calendar, these hours are not showing up.

This is because less than 15 mins or less than 0.25 hours of planning per day is not supported.

34. You can see Blocked Employees in Day Closure Run.

Blocked employees shows-up in the Day Closure Run, only Obsolete employees does not show-up in the run.

35. E-mail address is not available in the while extracting Employee via Data Extraction tool.

You extracted the employee data via Run ID EMPLOYEES, and downloaded the xml file and the e-mail address is not maintained in the template, neither in the Private Contact Data and it's also not available in the sheet Workplace Address. ( i.e. Here EMPLOYEES is an Run ID as an example)

These fields will not be available in the Employee Data extraction due to the way the extraction and the Business Object is set up.

Hence, use the Complete Data extraction.

36. You are unable to see sum of all Time Accounts in Report  Time Account Balances.

The Time Account Balances report and Data Source is created to show the balances of the different Time Accounts. It is not designed to sum up different Time Accounts together as they can have different values (hours/days).

 With Time Account Type field column you can see different balances under different Time Accounts, when you remove this column, the report will not aggregate the data. This is standard behavior.

37. You cannot see Leave Request in UI though it is present in backend database.

The absence on DD1.MM.YYYY is created by the employee DD2.MM.YYYY and did not get approved. The employee, then cancelled the leave on DD3.MM.YYYY and was activated immediately as the original leave was never approved.

If the customer executed the report Recorded Employee Times and added the Life cycle status to the rows on the report, they can see that the time was cancelled.

38. You are unable to see changes made in Time Account Balances in Changes tab.

This is expected system behavior as Time Account information is Valuation relevant which cannot be stored.

Business Configuration Changed made on any date can be seen in Configuration Change Reports. 
If there is any changes done in Time Accounts in settings, customer should perform a Day Closure Run for the back dated changes to reflect in Employee Time Profile.

39. How to see the approver in the Report? Or Approver Unassigned in Report.

The approver can be seen under field "Reporting Line Unit - Manager" in "Time Administration - Reports".

The field "Responsible employee" in time administration reports only gets filled in case of any project time recording. In such case the responsible employee is the project manager of the concerned project and the same gets filled.

But in case of any leave applied the approver is the reporting line unit manager.

40. No Quantity is shown for vacation for specific employee in Employee Times.

Day Closure Run for the employee is not up to date due to some errors, hence, that affects the Planned Times being generated. Take action on system errors to allow a successful Period Closure for the employee.

41. Temporary Change of Work Schedule is not reflected on employee time file.

This is the current expected behavior of the system in terms of Temporary Change of Work Schedule. This functionality is meant to be used for short-term changes, so it is currently is not reflected into the employee Time Profile.
Enhancement request is shared with the Product Management.

42. While configuring an Ordinary Public Holiday as Guaranteed Holiday the following options pop-up:
Thursday, Thursday/Friday, Friday; Friday/Saturday, Sunday, Saturday/Sunday, here you are missing the option of only Saturday. 

This is standard arrangement from the system.
All the options for a Guaranteed Holiday is served with these combinations.

Currently it is not supported to have guaranteed holidays, when the holiday falls on Saturday. This is a new requirement, please add this request o Influence Forum:

https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/campaign/886

As a workaround please maintain the holiday of type Floating Holiday. There you can enter the date for every year, when the holiday is observed.

For example: 15.8.2022, 15.8.2023, 15.8.2024, etc. Hence, when the date falls on a Saturday, you just maintain the date when the holiday is celebrated.

43.When trying to use the webservice-EmployeeTimeCollection , how do you enter Start and End Time?

Please use the format for time PTXXHYYMZZS(Where XX is the number of hours, YY is the number of minutes, ZZ is the number of seconds)

Example: "StartTime": "PT09H00M00S"

NOTE:The PT, refers to Period and Time and not Pacific Time. The Period and Time details the Hours, mins and seconds etc.

44. Where can you find all the Web Services list for ByDsign System?

Please check below link:
SOAP API | SAP Business ByDesign | SAP API Business Hub

45. You are unable to see ESS Time Recording Services for a specific Time Type in Fine Tuning Activity : Time Types, Maintain Employee Time Types.

Check in the given configuration under:

1. Business Configuration workcenter
2. Overview
3. Select Activity - Time Types
4. Select Activate for Time Recording Services
   You will notice missing Time Type under Activated list.
   
   

Also, for specific Time Type:

Paid Holiday:

Paid Holiday Time – reserved for the time type xx0200 Paid Holiday which is used to automatically trigger a payout for hourly employees with paid holiday.

As a precondition for a payout via payroll, the time type Paid Holiday must be mapped to a compensation component type for hourly payment using the Maintain Time Type Mapping function in the Compensation work center.

The system automatically generates paid holiday hours according to the planned working time defined in the employee’s work schedule. The time administrator can manually overwrite these hours by recording an employee time with time type xx0200.

Hence, it is not exposed to ESS Timesheet.

46. How to Add a New Field to Existing Templates in SAP ByDesign?
Ex: You want to create a Timesheet which will reflect work (different tasks) in many countries for one employee. You have added a new column Country/Region using the adaptation mode.

The new added field (column) should be reflected in the Microsoft Excel template for the Add-inn Upload Times Using Microsoft Excel®. 

Yes this is possible to add the required field in MS Excel template. Follow below instructions:

1. Go to Application and User Management workcenter
2. Go to the section Business Flexibility
3. Navigate to Microsoft Office® Template Maintenance subview
4. Select  Active Microsoft Office® Templates from the drop-down list
5. Find the Template Name: List of Project Time Confirmations
6. Select the appropriate Template Group

Follow further instructions from the below blog to add a New Field to the Existing Template: Blog

47. Is it possible to add an Attachment in Leave Request (eg: Medical certificate for illness leave)?

This feature is currently not available. You can upvote in the customer influence forum - https://influence.sap.com/sap/ino/#/idea/267211/?section=sectionDetails

As a workaround, Time administrator can add attachment to the Time File of the Employee

48. For an Employee in Time Administration you selected Time with the Approver but it did not go for "In Approval" ? as you have created this entry via webservice and also you have maintained the Approver in the message so that it would have changed to "In Approval" status

The entry can be activated via webservice . Here, in this webservice it gets active after save doesn’t go for approval process but it went for approval irrespective of the status

49. If the Leave is not visible in the EDIT TIMESHEET screen. Nevertheless, you can navigate in "My Request" we can see the leave requests under > Completed

The employee ID XYZ does not have Work Schedule/ Time Model assigned in Time administration, hence no duration valuated for the leaves applied and they are not visible in the time sheet.

50. Holiday Calendar does not show correct Public Holiday after modification in Holiday Calendar activity, even after Day Closure Run.

If you have performed a change in Business Configuration – Holiday Calendar Activity, Run Day Closure for Holiday Calendar should always start from starting Date of the yearly calendar, ex 01.01.2022.
If you perform Run Day Closure from the date of change, changes will not reflect in the employee Time Profile.

51. How to revert the status from Pending changes to Approved.

Time administration --->Time Recording ---->'Discard Changes'

52. If the Employee Time Account Statement is not showing Credited Hours 

The Employee's Time Profile for the dates specified may not have the Time Account assigned. Hence, it is unable to receive any balances as per the period end processing rules.You need to identify, if you have unassigned the Time Account for the periods specified. Then you have to assign the Time Account to the Employee's Time File. Later on perform a Run Day Closure for the Employee this would result in showing the credited hours.

53. If you wish to customize your Validation process of Time Recording in the Time Sheet of the Employee

Additional validations or/and messages during the validation of Employee Self-Service Overview Time Sheet configured can only be achieved by creating and configuring a Enhancement Implementation on a custom solution using SDK. Please check the below KBA for the same.

568317 - How to Add Custom Validations and Messages to Time Sheet Validation for Employee

54. Can you record the Time for a service agent through a webservice?

Currently, Time Recording for a service agent can be performed by MS-Excel upload and through Edit Time Sheet in Service Agent view. You can post this new requirement in our Influence Portal.

55. Can you change the existing Holiday Calendar?

No, it's not possible to change the Holiday calendar. As, Holiday is associated with Working day - which is associated with Business Residence in return.

56. Which  API/Process needs to be followed to be able to maintain Employee Time Model and Employee Time Accounts for assignments and changes.



Business Usecase: Creation of an employee with contract and time data via an external soap or oData call with data coming from an external HR system.
Currently contract and biographical data are no issue to create. There is no way, to assign a Time Profile to a user or to do the assignment of Time Accounts for new user.

API - Manage Working Time Models 
Time models are created in the system. It is not used to assign Time Models to employees.

API - Manage Employee Time Accounts Adjustments
It does not assign time accounts, it is for accrual and deduction of times to already assigned Time Accounts.

There is nothing via web services to assign Time Accounts /change Time Accounts, assign Time Models / change Time Models to an employee.

This is a new requirement and should be requested via the Influence Portal

 

55. Is it possible to perform a mass update of Time Account Balances for all Employees?

The system doesn't support a mass update of Time Account Balances for all employees. You'll need to manually review and adjust the balances for each individual employee.

56. You are unable to select Partial Day Leave in Employee Self-Services for selected Leave Types.

If the unit is Day for the Time Account selected in Posting Order, then only Full day and Half Day is allowed, and 
the Partial Day option and Duration input field will be dsiabled.

If unit is Hour(s) or blank, then only the Partial Day option and Duration input field will be enabled. This is a standard behavior.

56. Is it possible to edit Timesheet for an Employee whose time is already recorded for an Invoiced Purchase Order?

If the Purchase Order is under status Finished and under Invoicing status Invoiced, then the PO cannot be re-open for further TimeSheet corrections, either from the UI or the BO in backend.

57.When switching from day view to week view, the week view only shows one entry and the remaining time entries for the entire week are not visible.

To display all the records for the entire week in week view, simply switch to the week view and click on the week numbers. This will ensure that you can easily view and access the records for the entire week.

58.When you are trying to release the time sheet in the self-services overview view, a dump occurs

You need to select the week view and release a particular week instead of "Release All". Release All will release data from the past six months.

1. Go to the Home work center.
2. Select the Self-Services Overview view.
3. Select the Edit Time Sheet link.
4. Update the times and select the Release button and choose "Release Selected Week"

58. How to Create a New Time Type

Go to the Business Configuration work center ->Select the project and the Open Activity List button ->Select the Fine-Tune arrow ->Find the Time Types - <country> activity and open it ->Select the Maintain Employee Time Types link ->Select the Add Row button and enter necessary data in the columns ->Make sure the Code of new time type must begin with Z ->Select Save and Close button

59. Is it possible to make the "Task" field mandatory in Edit Timesheet?

It is not possible to make the Task field mandatory in Edit Timesheet, as per the standard system design.

60. Is it possible to massively modify existing time recordings?

Currently it is not possible to update multiple existing time entries. As generally there are multiple calculations and dependencies involved in each time entry, they need to be reviewed manually.

FAQ, Time Administration, Frequently Asked Questions, Holiday Calendar, Time Account Balances, Day Closure Run. , KBA , faq , time administration , frequently asked questions , holiday calendar , time account balances , day closure run , SRD-HR-TLM , Time and Labour Management , How To

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